7 mistakes beginners make with microtonal music

How to avoid the pitfalls and get better faster at microtones

This article is AI-assisted

This article examines common pitfalls that beginner microtonal musicians encounter and offers practical ways around them. The goal is not perfectionism or theoretical purity, but usable insight that helps you make music that sounds good to your ears. Along the way, every music-theory term appears with a link to the relevant page on the Xenharmonic Wiki so you can dive deeper whenever curiosity strikes.

1. Assuming that if you don’t like quarter tones, it means you don’t like microtones

One of the earliest and most frequent misconceptions is treating “microtones” as synonymous with quarter tones. A quarter tone is simply an interval of 50 cents — half a semitone in 12-tone equal temperament. It is only one narrow slice of the much larger category of microtonal intervals and systems.

Many people hear a synthesizer detuned by a quarter tone or a piece written in 24 equal divisions of the octave and decide the whole enterprise is dissonant or “out of tune.” That reaction is understandable: quarter-tone music often inherits the same harmonic language as 12-tone music while adding extra notes that clash with the familiar overtone series in unpredictable ways. But the microtonal universe contains far more options.

There are equal divisions of the octave with any number of steps (EDOs such as 19edo, 22edo, 31edo, 41edo, 53edo and beyond). There are just-intonation systems built from pure frequency ratios. There are regular temperaments that approximate just intervals while closing the octave or other periods. There are non-octave scales, scales with irregular step sizes, and historical or cultural systems that never assumed 12 notes to begin with.

If a particular flavour of microtonality feels unappealing, try another. The dislike of one interval size or one tuning does not mean the entire field is closed to you. Exploring different regions of pitch space is part of the pleasure.

(If you do like quarter tones though, by all means use them! A lot can be done with them!)

2. Ignoring timbre

Timbre — the tone colour of a sound — is the single most important factor in whether microtonal music sounds good or harsh. It matters far more than the particular tuning system you choose. A well-chosen timbre can make even highly unusual intervals feel natural and expressive; a poorly matched one can make pure just intervals sound grating.

The reason is physics. Every pitched sound contains a spectrum of overtones (partials). When two notes sound together, their partials interact. In 12-tone equal temperament the clashes are familiar and have been culturally normalised. In other tunings the same partials may align better or worse depending on the spectrum of the instrument.

Sine tones or very pure, soft-edged spectra tend to reveal pure ratios beautifully and expose dissonance clearly. Bright, buzzy, or harmonically rich spectra (sawtooth waves, distorted guitars, many acoustic instruments played loudly) create dense forests of partials that can produce beating and roughness when the fundamental intervals deviate from the usual ones. Learning to hear which spectra “play nicely” with a given tuning — and how to thin out or filter clashing overtones — gives you a decisive practical advantage.

Spend time simply listening to the same short phrase or chord progression with different instruments or synthesizer patches. Notice when the music suddenly feels clearer, warmer, or more stable. That felt intuition is more valuable than any theoretical rule about which intervals are “consonant.” Develop it deliberately and you will progress faster than someone who only studies interval sizes on paper.

3. Delaying experimenting because you can’t afford the equipment

Specialised microtonal instruments, custom keyboards, and high-end controllers exist and can be wonderful. They are not required to begin. A great deal of useful work can be done with free or inexpensive software and the computer keyboard you already own.

Scale Workshop is a browser-based tool that lets you design scales, map them to a QWERTY keyboard or MIDI controller, and play them immediately. You can share links that open the exact scale and mapping for other people. Export options make it easy to move the same tuning into other software.

The main practical limitation of a standard computer keyboard is the lack of n-key rollover on many models: you cannot press many keys at once without ghosting. A keyboard that supports full n-key rollover is still far cheaper than a purpose-built microtonal instrument and removes that particular frustration when you want to play dense chords.

Start simple. Load a scale, improvise short phrases, and record what you like. The barrier to entry has never been lower. Waiting until you can afford ideal hardware often means never starting at all.

4. Worrying too much about math

Mathematics is a powerful descriptive language for pitch relationships. It is not a substitute for listening. If a particular interval, chord, or progression sounds best to you, that is the relevant data. Whether a calculation shows it is the “optimal” approximation of some just interval, or whether it scores highly on a particular theoretical metric, is secondary.

Ears should override math. Many celebrated microtonal works use tunings that are mathematically imperfect by some standard yet musically convincing. Conversely, theoretically elegant systems can sound lifeless if the intervals do not move the listener.

Use math as a generator of candidates and as a way to understand why something works after the fact. Do not let it become a gatekeeper that prevents you from trying ideas that feel promising. Record experiments, listen back later, and trust the emotional and aesthetic response more than the numbers on the screen.

5. Neglecting to make ‘musical sketches’

Long, fully realised compositions are valuable, but short, focused experiments are often more efficient for learning. A musical sketch might be a 30-second chord progression, a short melodic motif explored in different registers, or a rhythmic pattern repeated while you change one interval at a time.

These sketches let you isolate variables. You can test how a new interval behaves in different harmonic contexts, how a scale feels when the tonic moves, or how a particular timbre interacts with a set of pitches. Because they are short, you can make many of them quickly and discard or keep without emotional attachment.

Over time the sketches accumulate into a personal library of useful materials and hard-won intuitions. They also reduce the pressure that comes with trying to write a complete piece every time you sit down. Treat sketching as a regular practice rather than an optional extra.

6. Trying to find one tuning system that does everything

The desire for a single “universal” tuning that works for every musical idea is understandable but usually counterproductive. A large tuning with dozens or hundreds of notes can become cognitively overwhelming. Mapping, memorising, and navigating such a system often slows creative flow.

A more practical approach is to choose different, relatively compact tunings for different pieces. One system might excel at approximating a particular just intonation subgroup; another might favour different harmonic relationships or melodic contours. Restricting the pitch set for a given song keeps the materials manageable and encourages coherent musical decisions.

Useful starting points include systems chosen for their strength with specific subgroups. The Xenharmonic Wiki’s “Survey of efficient temperaments by subgroup” (for tempered systems) and “Gallery of combination product sets” (for just systems) are excellent resources for finding such specialised tunings. A combination product set is one elegant way of generating finite just scales with controlled harmonic properties.

Working this way does not prevent you from later combining ideas or moving between systems. It simply keeps each individual exploration focused.

7. Ignoring all the great software that’s already out there

The software ecosystem for microtonal music has matured considerably. Ignoring existing tools forces you to reinvent solutions that others have already refined.

Entonal Studio provides an intuitive visual interface for retuning virtually any DAW or virtual instrument to any scale. The universal Scala file format lets you export a tuning once and import it into a wide range of software and hardware that support it. Wilsonic offers interactive versions of Erv Wilson’s scale-design diagrams, allowing you to build and export new tunings as Scala files with a hands-on feel.

Many more options appear on the Xenharmonic Wiki’s “List of music software.” Spending a little time surveying what already exists often saves far more time later and removes unnecessary friction from the creative process.

Closing thoughts

Microtonal music rewards curiosity, patient listening, and a willingness to treat theory as a servant rather than a master. The seven mistakes above are common because the field is both technically rich and still relatively under-served by mainstream music education. Each of them is avoidable once recognised.

The space beyond 12 tones is large. There is room for many different kinds of music and many different kinds of musicians. The most important step is simply to start exploring with open ears.